


They Speak With Silence

by shan_love



Category: Disney Animated Fandoms, Frozen (2013)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Elsanna if you squint, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:25:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3979630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shan_love/pseuds/shan_love
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So when their words fail them, as they so often do, they fall back to this, to something that echoes louder than nouns and verbs, something so bone deep and blood thick that it remembers nothing but laughter in the night and all of the joys (but none of the sorrows) that magic can bring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Speak With Silence

**Author's Note:**

> My first (finished) Frozen fic and I pounded it out in...about an hour? The idea hit me while I was scrolling through Pinterest and I just kinda ran with it.
> 
> As always I own nothing except the mistakes :)
> 
> (Oh, yeah, and there's Elsanna if you tilt your head and squint.)

It’s a beautiful day.

With nary a cloud in sight, the sun is bright overhead but the breeze leeches any sting from its heated light and Elsa is unquestionably glad that she’s unable to deny her sister anything. Because now, instead of being secluded within the confines of her study, back straight and hand cramping, she’s out here, her magic singing as it curves through the air, inextricably entwined with the sound of Anna’s laughter.

Anna, cheeks almost as red as her hair and eyes alight with equal parts joy and mischief, dodges the latest in a series of conjured snowballs and retaliates with a missile of her own that goes painfully wide. Despite the miss, she laughs just as loudly and digs mitten-clad fingers into the powder once more, determined to make up for it with her next throw.

The battle continues for what feels like hours, rounds of furious volleys that leave them both dusted with white followed by quiet lulls set to brimming with nothing but panting breaths and gasps of ragged laughter and, _Gods_ , but it has been so long since Elsa felt so…free.

But then Anna slips on a patch of ice just as she lets her magic fly and, for a moment, the scene changes. Suddenly, Elsa is no longer twenty-one, older and wiser and so very in control, she’s eight and her sister is five and she can only watch in silent horror as the memory superimposes itself over the present with an ease than leaves her breathless and terrified.

She doesn’t wait to see if it ends the same way. In fact, she doesn’t wait at all. In a whirlwind of icy-skirts and frosted breath, she races from the courtyard and doesn’t dare look back. With her eyes so full of tears, it’s doubtful she’d have been able to see anything anyway.

She’s halfway to her room before Anna realizes that, no, her sister isn’t taking advantage of her clumsiness to line up her next shot or find a better place to withstand her next attack. Her heart clenches painfully in her chest as she catches sight of the trail of snow-covered ice but it’s with steady legs that she follows it to the source.

She arrives to find Elsa’s door closed but not locked – even distraught she would never break a promise – still, Anna makes no move to enter. For she may be Arendelle’s fiery princess and she may be bold but there are some lines not even she will cross. So she presses her hand to the frame, wincing sympathetically at the chill of the wood, and in a soft voice, she tells her not to worry. That she’ll be there when she’s ready.

And, then, though she does not stay in place, she waits.

She waits not because she has to but because she _wants_ to, because she understands her sister in a way that, a few years ago, Gods, even a few _months_ ago, seemed impossible. Because she knows Elsa remembers a terrible _something_ that she cannot just as she knows no words she can offer can ease the hurt it causes.

Many times during the Lonely Years, as she’s taken to calling their separation, at least in her mind, she’d thought herself a victim. The one who’d been abandoned, cast aside for intangible things like duty and obligation. It’s only since the Great Thaw that she’s come to understand that, yes, she suffered in her sisters absence – she was lonely and sad and, sometimes, so very hurt and angry – but it was Elsa, locked not just inside a castle but inside _herself_ , who suffered most, who suffers still. Who, she fears, might suffer always.

So she does not press her. Though she visits the door every day, often more than once, she fills the bulk of her time with joys she knows her sister would never begrudge her. Journeys into Arendelle proper, sometimes with Olaf or Kristoff and Sven and sometimes without, most of which earn her nothing but aching legs and cheeks that hurt from smiling. Playing games with the village children, riding the royal horses in the most unladylike fashion, and a thousand other things that, had she not been so beloved by their people, might have earned their ire. But, underneath it all, she waits. Because she has learned the value of patience, of faith, of love And, really, what are a few days when compared with thirteen years?

Nearly a full week passes before her patience is rewarded, Elsa’s door easing open to reveal a wan slip of a thing with lank hair and the ghost of a haunted look lingering at the back of blue eyes. And, though her smile is hesitant, it is so bright and so _real_ that Anna doesn’t hesitate to wipe the apology off pink-tinged lips with a hug so tight it leaves them both struggling to breathe.

Though the door is open only a crack and she has to stand on her tiptoes to see inside – Elsa, it seems, will always be taller than her after all – she takes heart in the fact that blue walls are iced only halfway to her eyes rather than to the ceiling. She’s getting better.

Anna tells her this with a soft, sure hand on pale skin and a smile that speaks the words neither of them knows quite how to manage; she knows Elsa hears when she echoes the expression and gesture both.

This is how they speak, now, more often than not, with hands and eyes and secret reserves of unlimited patience and unconditional acceptance. Words, Anna’s come to find, are heavy, cumbersome things that fall flat the moment they leave her tongue. Words are cheap, breakable, and only as true as the person who gives them life. No, they are not to be trusted between the two of them, not yet; they are too easily misinterpreted, especially when one uses them as she does, too fast and far too often. Better to stick with this, the language they both speak fluently, than risk the progress they’ve made. Because, though she knows her sister wields power of many different colors, so to speak, it’s neither her magic nor her crown that compels Anna to stand at her side; it’s the warmth of her heart, a flame far too precious to expose to such unpredictable winds. At least, not yet.

Elsa, on the other hand, finds words to be simple, meaningless things. She has trained for years beyond counting to speak as though her every syllable was carefully chosen, crafted for the sole purpose of lending form and definition to her whims. Yes, Queen Elsa finds words to be easy things…except when she’s with her princess. She cannot treat her sister like a visiting dignitary; she cannot speak of Arendelles trade routes or alliances or enemies or any of the other things she’s been taught to speak of. She cannot even discuss poetry or philosophy or art because a lady does not speak of such passionate things to a stranger. And, though it pains her to admit it, pains them both, really, that _is_ what they are now. Strangers with the same mouth and a similar constellation of freckles stretched across the bridge of their noses.

So when their words fail them, as they so often do, they fall back to this, to something that echoes louder than nouns and verbs, something so bone deep and blood thick that it remembers nothing but laughter in the night and all of the joys (but none of the sorrows) that magic can bring.

It’s not perfect but, for now at least, it _is_ enough. And Elsa can wait for the rest, for the ease that only time can bring. Her sister, she knows, is more than worth the wait. But Anna…Anna has waited for her long enough.

So, when she asks the question she’s asked so many times before, she makes no attempt to waylay or persuade. The icemancer just extends her hand and lets her drag her toward the stairs.

Snowmen, after all, will not build themselves.


End file.
